The starter's gun explodes, and Hollis Grant excitedly begins her very first marathon race, only to stumble almost immediately over a body lying in the road, the body of the Reverend Paul Robertson, her soon-to-be ex-husband. When the crush of runners passes and the medics arrive, it becomes clear that the Reverend has not collapsed from the rigours of the race, but has been brutally stabbed. Although Hollis has emotionally distanced herself from her husband some time ago, her challenge now - before the police make her, as the estranged wife, the prime suspect - is to find out who, among his many detractors, would hate the Reverend enough to stick a knife in his back. Could it be a parishioner at his church who dislikes his activist stance towards gay marriage? Could it be one troubled soul among the many who have sought his psychological counselling and then found themselves laid bare in the Reverend's latest book? Or could it be the angry husband of one of the church ladies whom the charming Reverend has bedded? As Hollis and Detective Rhona Simpson probe the secretive life of Paul Robertson, they discover multiple motives for hatred and murder. As the murderer comes after Hollis herself, the solution to his murder takes on the urgency of life and death.